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Influence of multiple factors on plant local adaptation: soil type and folivore effects in Ruellia nudiflora (Acanthaceae)

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Abstract

Different environmental factors can have contrasting effects on the extent of plant local adaptation (LA). Here we evaluate the influence of folivory and soil type on LA in Ruellia nudiflora by performing reciprocal transplants at two sites in Yucatan (Mexico) while controlling for soil source and folivory level. Soil samples were collected at each site and half of the plants of each source at each site were grown with one soil source and half with the other. After transplanting, we reduced folivory by using an insecticide applied to half of the plants of each population source grown on each soil at each site. This resulted in a fully-crossed design with site, population source, soil source and folivory as main effects. We evaluated LA by means of a significant site × origin interaction showing a home-site advantage of native plants. Additionally, to test for an effect of soil source and folivores on LA, we estimated the three-way interactions of site × origin × soil source and site × origin × folivory. We recorded fruit number and survival throughout an 8-month period. For survival, we found evidence of home-site advantage at one site, while for fecundity we found no evidence of LA and at one site even observed evidence of lower fecundity for local relative to foreign plants. Importantly, folivory had no influence on the degree of home-site advantage for either response variable, while soil source influenced the degree of home-site advantage in fecundity at one site (suggesting some degree of specialization to soil characteristics in R. nudiflora). Our results emphasize the need for simultaneously evaluating multiple factors of influence in tests of LA.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank G. Pacheco, P. McManus, R. Moo, N. Celaya, P. Telléz and V. Hernández for field assistance, as well as L. Loria, D. Loria, D. Loria, and L. Aldana who kindly provided logistic support and accomodations at the study sites. Special thanks to R. J. Marquis for comments on a previous version of the manuscript, as well to Arjen Biere and two anonymous reviewers who improved the quality of this paper. This study was financially supported by the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACyT) through a doctoral scholarship to IOC and as part of a grant given to VPT (SEP 2004-CO1-4658A/A1).

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  1. Luis Abdala-Roberts

    Present address: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Irvine, 321 Steinhaus Hall, Irvine, CA, 92697-2525, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Ecología Tropical, Campus de Ciencias Biológicas y Agropecuarias, Universidad Autόnoma de Yucatán, Apartado Postal 4-116, Itzimná, 97000, Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico

    Ilka Ortegón-Campos, Luis Abdala-Roberts, Víctor Parra-Tabla, J. Carlos Cervera & Denis Marrufo-Zapata

  2. Estación Biológica de Doñana, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Isla de la Cartuja, Avenida Américo Vespucio s/n, 41092, Sevilla, Spain

    Carlos M. Herrera

Authors
  1. Ilka Ortegón-Campos
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  2. Luis Abdala-Roberts
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  3. Víctor Parra-Tabla
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  4. J. Carlos Cervera
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Correspondence to Víctor Parra-Tabla.

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Ortegón-Campos, I., Abdala-Roberts, L., Parra-Tabla, V. et al. Influence of multiple factors on plant local adaptation: soil type and folivore effects in Ruellia nudiflora (Acanthaceae). Evol Ecol 26, 545–558 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10682-011-9507-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10682-011-9507-5

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